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Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus. Venus's axial tilt is 177°, which means it is rotating almost exactly in the opposite direction to its orbit. Uranus has an axial tilt of 97.77°, so its axis of rotation is approximately ...
The distance between Venus and Earth varies from about 42 million km (at inferior conjunction) to about 258 million km (at superior conjunction). The average period between successive conjunctions of one type is 584 days – one synodic period of Venus. Five synodic periods of Venus is almost exactly 13 sidereal Venus years and 8 Earth years ...
The rotational axis of Earth, for example, is the imaginary line that passes through both the North Pole and South Pole, whereas the Earth's orbital axis is the line perpendicular to the imaginary plane through which the Earth moves as it revolves around the Sun; the Earth's obliquity or axial tilt is the angle between these two lines.
An animation explaining why the planet Mercury may appear to move "backwards", or retrograde across Earth's sky. Apparent retrograde motion is the apparent motion of a planet in a direction opposite to that of other bodies within its system, as observed from a particular vantage point.
Earth rotates (white arrows) once a day around its rotational axis (red); this axis itself rotates slowly (white circle), completing a rotation in approximately 26,000 years [1] In astronomy , axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis .
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defines the north pole of a planet or any of its satellites in the Solar System as the planetary pole that is in the same celestial hemisphere, relative to the invariable plane of the Solar System, as Earth's north pole. [1] This definition is independent of the object's direction of rotation about its ...
Venus currently has a surface temperature of 450℃ (the temperature of an oven’s self-cleaning cycle) and an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide (96%) with a density 90 times that of Earth’s.
In astronomy, perturbation is the complex motion of a massive body subjected to forces other than the gravitational attraction of a single other massive body. [1] The other forces can include a third (fourth, fifth, etc.) body, resistance, as from an atmosphere, and the off-center attraction of an oblate or otherwise misshapen body.